Text and photos by Andy Lerner.

I’ve always likened SCUBA diving in the ocean to visiting a foreign country. You don’t really feel like you belong there, you only know a little bit of the language, and your stay is temporary. If you’re an underwater photographer, you do everything you can to fight against every bit of that. You do your best to understand the behavior and customs in this foreign place so you can be at the right place at the right time for a photographic opportunity.

Wire coral goby. Taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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You try hard to blend in even though you’re the only one blowing bubbles. And you try your best to keep your breathing slow and steady to extend your time underwater for as long as possible. On top of all of that is the additional task of finding something unique to photograph in a world where nearly everything seems unique. It’s a place filled with strange and wonderful life, so settling on a subject is not easy.

Juvenile anemonefish, taken in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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This search often leads me to macro photography. In an enormous place measured in miles, meters, and fathoms, working in millimeters is a pretty amazing experience. If you buy my foreign visitor premise, then working in macro is like looking for some weird little out of the way villages in that foreign country. Tiny outposts with tiny inhabitants.

Whip coral goby hiding. Taken in Fiji.
© Andy Lerner
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There is so much of this mini life going on that they really can seem like little civilizations. There are homes and territories, enemies and hideouts. There are places and times where the residents like to eat, and places and times where they like to get cleaned and groomed. This all takes some getting used to. Lots of study and observation go into figuring this out. But once you learn the ropes and get a feel for how things work, you can start to get a handle on how to find some worthy subjects.

Purple anemone shrimp. Taken in Wakatobi, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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Keep in mind that the inhabitants I’m looking for are very small. Have I mentioned millimeters? Often smaller than postage stamp. Tiny. Little crabs, shrimp, baby cuttlefish, nudibranchs or fish eggs. A lot of stuff you might have to look up in a reference book later. Occasionally you find an extremely tiny creature living on another creature you thought was plenty small enough. It’s pretty amazing to say the least.

Green xeno shrimp on wire coral. Taken in Fiji.
© Andy Lerner
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The good news is that after some experience, I’ve learned to tame my own sense of awe with this miniature world enough to try for a couple of decent shots. Once my eyes and brain adjust to working in this little environment, I get completely absorbed. A sort of tunnel vision takes over. My breathing slows. I block out the bigger stuff and train my eyes on the details. It’s one of the few times in my life when nothing else matters. It’s just me, the sound of my breathing, and whatever I can find. It becomes a kind of meditation. Can you tell that this is the best part of it for me?

Bubble coral with goby, taken in Sulawesi, Inodnesia.
© Andy Lerner
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I look for little shadows or movement. Little phantoms scurrying out of my way. I look under rocks, in the sand, coral or on other animals. Many of these tiny things are camouflaged for their own survival. Brown on brown, red on red etc. It takes some concentration. When I’m lucky I might spot a pair of eyes reflecting back from my flashlight, or a shadow bolting into a tiny hole. Often, by the time I see movement it’s probably too late – whatever it was is already gone and what I saw may have just been a couple of grains of sand kicked up as it was leaving. When and if I finally I find something, I have to evaluate whether there’s a worthy composition to be had (which can be insane while shooting under a rock or through coral polyps and the depth of field is fractions of an inch). There are also tons of things that are interesting to see but make lousy subjects for an appealing photograph.

Unknown species of crab riding on a sea cucumber. Taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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Remaining motionless is maybe the biggest task, not only for the sake of the photograph, but so as not to scare the little critter away. It’s not unusual to use half of my dive just inching next toward a subject, working my way closer as it gets used to my being there. It fosters a sort of relationship where both you and the critter are waiting to figure out what each other’s next move is going to be. It’s a careful dance where your dance partner could leave the floor at any minute.

Yellow crinoid shrimp inside crinoid. Taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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All of the tension of the “dance” is in the continued cooperation of nature, and as we all know nature isn’t predictable or cooperative. But that’s exactly what brings me there. The challenge of experiencing and capturing something that is difficult or impossible to repeat.

Portrait of a hermit crab. Taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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Sometimes you need to be satisfied with your first shot, because the strobe flash, or an awkward movement, or just the whim of the creature can be all it takes to finish your photo session. You don’t always get a 2nd shot. But occasionally you get lucky, and all of the stealth moves, calm breathing, and patience pays off. Maybe you get a few shots, and maybe you even get to try a few different ideas until you get something that works.

Unknown species of octopus in sand, taken in Bali, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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When I return topside, the trance is broken and it’s a bit of a shock to the system. After spending an hour or more photographing a creature as small as a thumbtack, and being in that meditative state it induces in me, it can be jarring to deal with life-sized objects again… let alone people. It takes a few minutes.

Pygmy seahorse in sea fan, taken in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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When I finally come around, it’s not unusual for me to come back to the boat to hear other divers talking about much bigger stuff they saw in the water while I was concentrating on macro. In Indonesia this past winter I apparently missed a 14 ft. whale shark. A 14 ft. whale shark is a very hard thing to miss. Unless of course you’re focused on other things.

For more underwater photography, please visit Andy Lerner website.

Squat lobster on a sponge. Taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
© Andy Lerner
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To understand an artist’s work you can’t keep your eye stuck only on the image that’s worth a thousand words, and Camera Obscura gave me a click on this sentence, making me go deeper and beyond. A week ago I couldn’t avoid going to an exhibition held here in Paris, at the Centre Gulbenkian (French delegation of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon), and if you’re coming here, please do yourself a favour and go see it!

Gérard Castello-Lopes was born in Vichy in 1925, son of the cinema (his father, José Castello-Lopes, founder of Filmes Castello-Lopes) and music (his mother, Marie-Antoinette Lévéque, piano player), spending most of his life living in Lisbon – or between Lisbon and Paris -, being himself a disciple of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

#2 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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I knew his work since always – I guess that I have less years of life than he dedicated to photography – but always felt something was missing for me to understand his whole work. It can be understood perfectly well the influence of the music on his work, specially piano, as he was a great piano player and composer himself, and also co-founder of the Lisbon Hot Club, the Lisbon jazz spot. This, you will find on the lines and rhythms and compositions (photo #1).

#3 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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It can also be perfectly visible the influence he had from the cinema, in the use of light (also from Cartier-Bresson, using natural light), composition, stolen stills from a film. But still… there was something I didn’t know: his main passion and hobby and where it all began:

Water.

Under Water.

#4 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Gérard Castello-Lopes was a passionate autonomous diver. From the Ocean to the sea, the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, where he learned how to dive (Cannes) or near Lisbon, where he lost his friend and diver colleague Philippe Cousteau. And it was when diving that he starts doing photography with his French Foca.

Suddenly it all made sense to me, so I went back to the exhibition’s rooms to review all his main work. It’s true that he had an amazing work of light, as I wrote before natural light taught by his (our) master Cartier-Bresson. Even though there’s a huge difference of lights as the light of Lisbon is much warmer than the light of Paris. I experienced that already in my own photographic work. However, Castello-Lopes’ light is different. It’s not the usual light of Lisbon or Paris. He, somehow, brings the underwater light to his photography giving to it a special mood very characteristic on his work. That was exactly the feeling I had when seeing his exhibited work: diving in submerged cities, where water isn’t an issue for us to breath.

#5 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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His view, or the view that he gives us is not only through his camera lenses but also through his diving armour’s glass, as if he had the gift of taking us to the place making us living and feeling it as he did.

There are photographs that you feel diving through submerged places, finding living humans there or just their presence even though being all them existing on the surface, and when on the earth’s surface feeling he brings water puddles (photos #2 and #3) or glass reflections, to give some water mood as well.

#6 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Gérard Castello-Lopes started taking photography while diving, but soon he realised that was not so easy, also for the camera as it had immediately to go through several complicated processes of cleaning the camera even if he had a supposed waterproof metal case with flash, so his photographs really under water became more as a frustration to him.

On the photograph taken in Scotland, 1985, (photo #4) there are two kids throwing pieces of bread to flying seagulls, however, the image I “saw” was the 3 seagulls as swimming fishes reflected on sky. A play of sea and sky, as if the sky was showing the reflection of the sea and not the opposite, that he repeated in other photographs like the one he took in Chambord, France (photo #5), in 1984.

#7 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Castello-Lopes projects this way his underwater world to ours.

He also brought kids diving, as I’m sure he saw them and projected them as so, even if they were just jumping and playing on any street (photos #6 and #7). They both appear to be diving and playing in deep ocean.

#8 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Or the photograph with the 4 priests sit down on a bench talking (photo #8), like corals in a reef, with such aquatic and organic movement they have.

And the “mermaid” looking lost as any human-fish at “Dubonnet’s sea”, taken in Paris, in 1957 (photo #9).

#9 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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From the magnificent portrait of his mother taken in 1959 (photo #10), the piano player as a reflected bust lost and found next to a sank boat under the Mediterranean waters that he could have take while diving… to the photo he took already with his feet on earth, from above, watching the body submerged, in 1998, (photo #11) when it seems that he finally assumes he is out of his main element. He feels his feet on the ground now, after he got married and become a father of two. He explores earth.

#10 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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And here on earth, he shoots his photograph that I like the most, in Paris, 1985. (photo #12). Probably one of his most abstract images, inviting you to be there. In this one, if you’re a follower of the rules, you’ll be disappointed, as it seems that he broke them all. Even the basic rule of thirds. The main subject is on your left side. It reminds me another one, taken by Cindy Sherman, where there’s a lonely lady on the left, leaving the line-curve on the right so you can feel yourself there, or even a blank space for someone who’s yet to arrive.

#11 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Some people can break all the rules: they are called masters.

Patterns were also something that attracted Castello-Lopes. But not to be repeated. They existed to be different, even if this can seem awkward or non-sense. He doesn’t photograph a pattern; he gives us the concept of patterns. Like they exist in nature, or the walls created by seaweeds creating patterns that don’t exist… as a pattern. But as a whole. So that’s what he also brought, shooting ropes left at the sand by fishermen, or even trails left by their boats, wheels and feet. Or coming out from the sea and sand, already at the urban landscape the scaffolding that is used to build, with men and by men. And with men, is also the iconic photograph of them all turned back, in line, bending, looking at the sea. In Algarve, 1957 (photo #13).

#12 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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His marriage with Daniéle and the birth of his two children (daughter and son), brought him out of water, giving him a new universe, even if he never stopped diving in his mind and way of seeing. He was living on earth.

He now enjoys another element: Fire. Finally. That he started discovering with his series of blood at the bullfights, and later on with his other colour series of the burning scare crows (1996) (photo #14).

#13 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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If there is a need to cut Gérard Castello-Lopes photographic chronology in 2 parts -due to his marriage and the birth of their 2 children-, there’s a first part where he never left the Water, even if using the Air element to reflect it, and the second part -after being married and becoming a father-, where he is connected with Earth. And finally Fire. Scaring the crows. Playing Jazz.

Visit Gérard Castello-Lopes (1925-2011) exposition Apparitions (photography 1956-2006) curated by Jorge Calado. Centre Gulbenkian, Paris from April 25th to October 25th 2012.

#14 © Gérard Castello-Lopes
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Text and photos by Michael Marten.

In 2003 I was searching for a photo project that would express how landscape is constantly changing, not through human activities but through natural processes like weather, erosion, changes of season. On my way back south from Edinburgh, I chanced upon this tiny harbour on the coast of Berwickshire, in south-east Scotland. It’s invisible from the nearest road, but there was a track down the cliffside and rocks below that looked enticing. When I got down, I found a hand-hewn 30-metre tunnel through the red sandstone rock and beyond it the harbour, all sand and pebbles at low tide. I spent the whole day there taking pictures with my 5×4 Wista.

Harbour, Berwickshire. 22 August 2005.
Low water 11am, high water 6pm
© Michael Marten
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When I got home and had the films processed, I saw that I had taken more or less the same view of the curving teeth-like rocks outside the harbour at both low tide in the morning and at high tide in the late afternoon. The contrast between the pictures fascinated me – how the rising sea completely changed the perspective and feeling of the landscape. I immediately knew I’d found my project. So I set out to find places where there would be a dramatic visual difference between low and high tide and in the process became a student of tides!

The 'shore goats', Berwickshire. 19 September 2008.
Low water 11.45am, 4pm, high water 5.40pm
© Michael Marten
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In 2004 I returned to the Berwickshire harbour. Built in the 1830s, for a time in the late 19th century it was the third largest herring fishing harbour on the east coast of Scotland. Now it hosts two tiny boats and visitors lucky enough to know of its existence or chance upon it.

Salmon fishery, Solway Firth. 27 and 28 March 2006.
Low water 5.20pm, high water 12 noon
© Michael Marten
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On most coasts around the world there are two tides every day, but I quickly learned that not all tides are the same. They vary hugely from place to place. In the Mediterranean the height of the tide (from low to high) is measured in centimetres. In Britain it ranges from 1 metre on parts of the North Sea coast to 15 metres (third highest in the world) in the Bristol Channel. Also, the height in any one place varies over time. Every two weeks, in the four or five days starting at new moon and full moon, the tides are higher. They are called ‘spring’ tides in English – because they rise higher, not because they have anything to do with the season of spring. In between, when the moon is waxing or waning, the tides are less high and are known as ‘neap’ tides. So high tide in the Bristol Channel might be 15 metres high at a spring tide, but less than 10 metres at neap.

Cuckmere Haven, Sussex. 12 August 2006.
Low water 9.15am, high water 2.50pm
© Michael Marten
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That’s only one part of the rhythm of the tides. Spring and neap tides also vary throughout the year. Spring tides are highest in the months around the equinoxes, in February, March, April, and August, September, October. One of the two spring tides in each of these months is particularly high, and that’s when the Bristol Channel’s 15-metre figure is reached.

Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall. 25 and 31 August 2007.
High water 4.30pm, low water 2pm
© Michael Marten
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The water doesn’t just rise highest at the big spring tides, it also goes out furthest. That’s ideal for my photographs, since it is when there is the most dramatic visual difference between low tide and high tide. It’s when beaches get completely covered at flood and when rocks are most revealed at ebb.

Worms Head, Glamorgan. 25 June 2005.
High water 9.45am, low water 4pm
© Michael Marten
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The island of Britain isn’t big by international standards, but its coastline measures 17,800 km if you were to walk round all the headlands, bays, sea lochs and estuaries! I’ve been photographing British tides for 8 years, and I’ve still only covered a fraction of the whole coast.

North Berwick, East Lothian. 20 August 2005.
Low water 11.15am, high water 3.40pm
© Michael Marten
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So when people ask if I’m going to photograph the tides at Mont Saint-Michel or in the Bay of Fundy on the north-east coast of America, which boasts the highest tidal range in the world (16 metres), I reply that I’ve got more than enough to be going on with here at home! The British coast isn’t just long, it’s extraordinarily varied. There are long sandy beaches, white chalk cliffs, industrial estuaries, harbours large and small, tidal saltmarshes, and great sweeps of flat sand and mud like Morecambe Bay where the flood tide comes racing in faster than a galloping horse and the unwary have often been caught and drowned, including 21 Chinese cockle pickers in 2004.

Perranporth, Cornwall. 29 and 30 August 2007.
Low water 12 noon, high water 8pm
© Michael Marten
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Since I became interested in tides, I spend hours studying the tide tables produced by the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO). It’s not just a question of knowing on what days the spring tides will occur in a particular year, I also need to find out the times of low and high water in each place I want to photograph. Today, for instance, high tides are at 5.45am and 6.35pm in Southampton, 8.40am and 9.18pm at London Bridge, and 10.50am and 11.45pm at Newcastle. Tomorrow all these times will advance between 20 minutes and 45 minutes, and the same the next day and the day after.

Southend-on-Sea, Essex. 10 September 2010.
Low water 7.45am, high water 2pm
© Michael Marten
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The UKHO is a branch of Britain’s ministry of defence. The tide tables they produce are published as thick books detailing times of high water and low water, tide heights, and other parameters throughout the year for all the harbours around the British Isles – and there are a lot of harbours.

Blackpool, Lancashire. 16 August 2010.
Low water 11.20am, high water 4pm
© Michael Marten
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The more I photographed the tides, the more fascinated I became by their complex variations. So I got in touch with the UKHO to see if I could talk to someone who might be able to answer some of my questions. Like, why is one of the two high tides each day always a bit higher than the other one (‘diurnal variation’)? And is it true that the tides don’t just slop back and forth from one side of a sea or ocean to the other, but are in fact a kind of circular wave that rotates every 12 hours around a ‘point of no tide’ called the amphidromic point? The UKHO, it turned out, employs a Head of Tides and a Deputy Head of Tides and these two scientists very kindly spent a couple of hours one afternoon answering my questions.

Cockenzie, East Lothian. 23 August 2005.
Low water 10.40am, high water 7.30pm
© Michael Marten
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The tides, I was taught in school, are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon on the waters of the earth. In fact the moon contributes two thirds of the effect and the sun one third. When moon and sun are more or less in line with earth – as happens around full moon and new moon – their pull is combined and causes spring tides. When moon, sun and earth are out of alignment, the pull of the bodies tends to cancel out and we get neap tides. It is the interplay of the moon’s pull as it orbits earth, and the sun’s pull as it is orbited by earth and moon, that makes the rhythms of the tides so complex.

Holehaven Creek, Thames estuary, Essex. 10 and 11 September 2010.
High water 4.20pm, low water 10.15am
© Michael Marten
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The time between high and low tide averages 6 hours 20 minutes, but this is just an average. In some places the tide may take 8 or 9 hours to come in, but only 3 or 4 hours to go out again; or vice versa; or anywhere in between. And even where the timing of the tides is close to the average, it will change from day to day: so today it may take 6 hours 17 minutes for the tide to rise in the pretty harbour of St Ives, in Cornwall, tomorrow 6 hours 30 minutes, and the day after 6 hours 8 minutes.

Wivenhoe, Essex. 23 March 2007.
Low water 9.30am, high water 4.15pm
© Michael Marten
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The answer to the question about whether tides are rotating waves is: yes, they are. In the North Sea, for example, there are three separate systems, or tidal gyres, that circulate anti-clockwise. Each one rotates around its own point of no tide. You can visualise the tide as a flat plate like a computer disc or a vinyl record that is slightly tilted. The side of the plate that sticks up represents high tide, the opposite side is low tide. As the plate revolves, high and low tide sweep round. In the southern part of the North Sea, for instance, the wave of high tide sweeps down the east coast of England, then crosses over to travel along the coasts of Holland and north-west Germany before sweeping up the west coast of Denmark and then crossing back over to England. When the tide is high on the English coast it is low in Denmark, and vice versa.

Mussel storage pond, Brancaster Staithe, Norfolk. 10 March 2005.
Low water 1pm, high water 5.30pm
© Michael Marten
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So tides are really circulating tidal waves, a kind of cyclical, twice-a-day tsunami to which all forms of tidal life have adapted, from algae and mussels to surfers and yachtsmen. When a real tsunami approaches a coast, the waters first recede from the shore and then return in the tidal wave. This is a high-speed version of the ebbing of the waters at low tide which then flood back at high tide.

Watchet, Somerset. 7 and 8 March 2007.
Low water 3.45pm, high water 9.30am
© Michael Marten
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I’ve been told that some of my tidal diptychs have a serene, timeless quality, and people therefore wonder if making the pictures is also a serene business of setting up the camera, taking the first picture at low (or high) water, and then gazing happily out to sea for 6 hours until the tide comes in (or goes out). In reality the project has rarely been that relaxed. On the contrary!

St Michael's Mount, Cornwall. 25 and 26 June 2009.
Low water 1.15pm, high water 8am
© Michael Marten
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I usually go to a section of coast – north-west Wales, for example, or the Thames estuary – for the five days of a high spring tide. I try to leave a couple of days early so that I can explore the whole area and scout out locations. This needs to be done when the tide is out, so that one can see what will be covered and revealed as the sea comes and goes. I select a number of possible views up and down a stretch of coastline, sometimes as much as 75 kilometres apart. Even in one location I often have two or three different viewpoints. High water is always a very busy time. Visually, the tide is at full for about one hour. In that time I try to shoot several views and maybe two or three locations, rushing on foot or by car from one to the other. Low tide tends to be a little more relaxed, as the water appears to be far out for three or even four hours.

Crosby, Liverpool. 5 and 7 April 2008.
High water 12 noon, low water 9am
© Michael Marten
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When I take the first picture of a tidal pair, I mark the position of my tripod with sticks or stones or scratch marks on rocks so that I can set up in the same position 6 hours later, or the next day. I also place a sheet of tracing paper, cut to 5×4, on the camera’s ground glass screen and trace with a pencil the key lines that will remain unchanged when the tide comes in or goes out – a rock, maybe, or harbour wall or distant headland, and of course the horizon. This allows me to frame the second image of the diptych exactly the same as the first. Since I started also using a digital camera (Phase One), I use a grid focusing screen and make detailed notes of where key features in the scene relate to particular lines of the grid.

Porthcawl, Glamorgan. 17 May 2007.
Low water 12 noon, high water 8pm
© Michael Marten
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Studying the tides makes clear that in spite of all the power of humans to shape, manipulate and harm the planet, its deep rhythms remain beyond our influence. In its geological and many of its other natural processes, the earth is stronger, subtler, more persistent than we sometimes imagine. Nonetheless, many of the views in my pictures probably will have ceased to exist in 100 or 200 years’ time, when global warming has caused sea levels to rise by several metres. For life in coastal towns and cities around the world, the change will be devastating. But from the planet’s perspective it will be just a minor episode. Sea levels have varied by more than 100 metres during the ice ages – a deeper, slower, climate-driven kind of tide that rises and falls over tens and hundreds of thousands of years instead of twice a day!

Visit Michael Marten for more sea tide photos.

Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk. 10 September 2006.
High water 8.40am, low water 3pm
© Michael Marten
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